Typologically the Sargon correspondence, like the Assyrian royal correspondence in general, falls into four major classes: (1) Royal letters and orders, (2) Responses to these, (3) Reports, and (4) Varia, consisting chiefly of miscellaneous suggestions, requests and petitions.[[13]] The first two are intimately interconnected and furnish important evidence on Assyrian royal policies and the practical implementation of royal commands. Letters of class (3-4) provide invaluable information on contemporary political, military, social and economic developments and conditions both in Assyria and abroad.
The largest group of letters is (3), which can be subdivided into two sub groups: (a) routine and (b) acute reports. The former consists of (mostly stereotyped) reports on the state of the province, performance of major religious festivals, crops, weather conditions and the like.[[14]] The latter is made up of highly individual reports of unusual and/or alarming political and military developments, critical situations, emergencies and so forth. It seems likely that reports of type (a) were expected to be submitted regularly at given times of the year and would thus a priori have been comparatively infrequent. Reports of type (b), on the other hand, were bound to be highly irregular and may have clustered in considerable numbers around certain incidents.
13 Cf. the topical structure of the scholarly correspondence of Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal analysed in LAS II, pp. 472-482.
14 The stereotype nature of these reports is made clear e.g. by nos. 173-174 and 186-187 of the present edition, which are for all practical purposes identical. The latter are further paralleled by NL 40 probably dating from the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III.
Simo Parpola
Simo Parpola, 'Types of Messages', The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part I: Letters from Assyria and the West, SAA 1. Original publication: Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1987; online contents: SAAo/SAA01 Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2020 [http://oracc.org/saao/saa01/administrativecommunication/messagetype/]